The Name Game
by LividMeerkat
Summary: To most people she was Ziva; David if you wanted to be really formal about it, but no-one had really dared to deviate from the standard, her reputation and fondness for knives was well known to even the most basement-dwelling of all the NCIS geeks. Tony always did like to stand out from the crowd. A series of oneshots concerning all the things Tony calls Ziva over the years.
1. Chapter 1

**Nothing to say except: let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoy.**

**1\. Kate**

At first he calls her Kate. Only at first and never on purpose, but every so often he'll catch her looking at him with understanding brown eyes and he'll realise what he's just said. She never calls him out on it which surprises him; Ziva's not exactly the type to keep her thoughts to herself. And being called by the name of your predecessor, your dead predecessor, the one that your own brother killed… well, it's bound to stir up a lotta thoughts.

In his defence, everyone else has done it at least once too, he isn't the only one clearly wishing she was someone else. _(McGee falling over himself apologising looking so terrified you'd think she was about to shoot him, Abby raising a challenging eyebrow as if to say 'what are you gonna do about it?', Ducky with an, 'I am so sorry, dear, old age is catching up to me fast it seems,' and if Tony squinted he could pretend that Ziva looked like she believed the apologetic doctor, even Gibbs does it, well after the rest of them have stopped, that one time post-Mexican summer break and that time there was no pretending that the slip of the tongue hadn't completely slapped her across the face.) _

Don't get him wrong, he likes her, he does. She's fun and flirty and she takes everything he says and amps the pressure up about ten levels_(not to mention that she's a hot twenty three year old who speaks multiple languages and carries a gun, that doesn't hurt either)_. She seems to take pride in being one of the guys - stealing bites of his burrito, out-drinking them at any opportunity, driving like an absolute maniac, and bragging about hooking a guy's privates up to an electric current to make him squeal _(both he and McGee had winced and moved slightly further away from her as she eyed them both with a predator's gaze)_ \- whereas Kate had preferred promoting _girl power_, spending as much time as possible down in Abby's lab or routinely wiping the floor with them at the NCIS gym.

He likes a challenge, especially when it comes to women. In that aspect he supposes the two of them are similar, albeit in different ways. If Kate had been an elegant waltz or a flowing foxtrot then Ziva's a tango or a samba or a paso doble. She's loud music filled with blaring horns and brash drums, she's all quicksteps and sensual sexuality, swinging, swaying hips and foreign sizzle and if you're a beginner _(which Tony definitely isn't, thank you very much)_, she's almost impossible to keep up with. With Ziva it would be so easy to trip over your own feet in an attempt to adjust and end up flat on your face; her first words to him had completely knocked him on his ass and he's not sure he's fully managed to recover from it _(incidentally, whose first words to an absolute stranger are 'having phone sex?', like, who the __**hell**__ does that?)_.

But he and Kate had had an unspoken agreement, a routine that he'd gotten used to. Most people would've looked at them and seen two people who couldn't stand each other, and he can see why they would've gotten that impression, really, he can. Before the plague incident he doesn't think they'd ever said a kind word to each other; tension had been diffused with _(mostly) _jokey snipes and barbs and a moderate amount of actual hissing. The way he saw it at the time, if they were being nice then something was very wrong. With her there'd always been a sense of _we're either gonna go for each other in a scene straight outta Kill Bill Volume 1 or we're gonna end up in bed together. _She'd had a bite to her that Viv didn't, she knew how to handle herself in a male dominated environment and she was more than used to shooting down men who tried to hit on her. Tony had never stood a chance with her.

With Ziva… the line's distinctly more blurred. She thinks nothing of making comments that would even make Gibbs blush, getting all up in his personal space, filling his head with the swirling smells of sandalwood and cinnamon, her words whispered directly into his ear in that low, husky voice that has him gripping the edge of his desk and begging his mind to focus on… other things. _McGee, Nonna DiNozzo, Ducky, Ducky naked… ew, no, abort, abort, he'd rather Ziva see the results of her teasing than picture __**that**_.

The slip ups stop sometime around _married couple in a hotel room_ and _dismembered legs_ and _freezing cold storage containers_. Maybe it's something to do with the fact that he got to see her naked _(Kate would _**_never _**_have suggested that they have sex – fake or not – just on the off chance that they were being watched, and having seen every inch of Ziva's toned body, including the intricately inked tattoo on the inside of her thigh that would no doubt have succeeded in finally winning Abby around… he's under no illusions as to who she is)_. Maybe it's the way she actually seems mildly concerned about him after he takes seven whacks to the face _(he may not have been counting but of course, she had been)_ and even offers to drive him home _(though thankfully for his aching head and his bruised body, Probie-Wan Kenobi does it instead; though he has to admit that the Mossad Liaison Officer both smells and looks nicer than McRoomService)_.

Maybe it's the game of _rate my ass _she treats them to in the squad room _(apparently his would be a solid five out of five if it wasn't for the quote-unquote _**_excessive hair _**_that she'd seen during their undercover performance the week before and he's not gonna lie, the minute she said that he'd been seriously tempted to do something about it)_. Maybe it's the way she tries to help him when he's in jail on suspicion of murder _(he enjoys being regaled with tales of her slamming a man up against a wall and rubbing their federal warrant in his face with the kind of glee usually only shown by little kids on Christmas)_, the first sign that she might actually care about him beyond casual flirtation and sexual tension.

Maybe it's the semi-serious, semi-irritated conversation they muddle through, stuck in the cold, dark storage container with only each other, millions of dollars in false bills, and who knows how many copies of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai for company. Maybe it's the meal she cooks for him afterwards, more than making up for him not being invited to her dinner party the night before _(given the choice between visiting the apartment of his hot new co-worker with the rest of his team and visiting it alone, he knows which scenario he prefers… even if he is curious as to just how she ended up with friction burns on her knees)_.

It doesn't matter; she stops being _Kate's replacement _and starts being Ziva David - crazy Israeli chick with a worrying obsession with knives and who drove like there was no one else around _(there was, and the cacophony of horns following them everywhere was proof of that)_. He stops seeing an equally dark-haired woman, one with paler skin, a cross around her neck, and a general _don't talk to me, Tony _attitude sitting at that desk. It's still not _Ziva's desk _but it's close, and most days he can look at it and see her sitting there without feeling a gnawing in his chest and warm blood splattered across his face.

It's not until years later that he makes the same mistake again, after a nasty blow to the head leaves him slumped on the sidewalk while everyone else rushes off to make the arrest. He watches his former Mossad partner and Gibbs drag the beaten, handcuffed murderer towards the charger and he knows he's missed out on one hell of a beat down.

He smiles woozily as the world spins and blurs around him, "Tell me Kate kicked his ass, boss." The guy was, from what Tony had heard about him, a woman-beating, woman-murdering, piece of shit, it'd only be fitting if the sole female member of the team had been the one to thoroughly kick his ass.

It's been years of knowing her, flirting with her, and generally being with her; undoubtedly getting closer to her than he ever managed to do with Kate. That probably makes it worse. It's doubly worse that he only knows he's done something wrong when her face falls and Gibbs threatens to hit him even harder. To make it triply worse, he doesn't even figure out what it is until McGee calls Ziva's name, asking her to come and check something out and she goes with a doe-eyed glance backwards and a robotic stride.

"I screw up, boss?" He manages to ask through a thick tongue and a lump in his throat.

"Ya think, DiNozzo?" Gibbs says, until Tony looks at him, wide eyed and freaked out and then he lowers his voice and adds, "Go see Ducky 'bout your head, we got things here, you can make it up to her later."

It seems like permission to do something the rules would usually forbid him from doing but that could just be concussion.

"Sure thing, bossman."

Like a good little agent, he does as he's told, shuffling off and trying to get the hurt expression on Ziva's face out of his cloudy mind.

He feels like he deserves the pain he feels as Ducky pokes and prods at his bleeding head even as the doctor mutters apologies and asks him to stop squirming.

When he shows up on her doorstep that evening with an apology bottle of wine _(that he shouldn't even really be drinking at all)_, a large pepperoni pizza from Papa Don's _(her favourite)_, and a sincere, "I'm really sorry, Ziva," her smile as she lets him in makes it worth it.

Later, as he dozes off, with his head in her lap and her fingers weaving expertly through his hair, he decides he might just let himself get smacked in the head more often _(provided he never, ever, forgets her name again, no matter how temporarily)_. The status quo seems to be different whenever one of them's hurt or sick, he's noticed, they're more willing to push things, to act more touchy-feely. A touchy-feely Ziva is a Ziva he likes very much, especially if it's him she's touching.

There was that time Ziva had the flu the year before and he'd decided to drop in on her after work. She'd called in sick at nine that morning _(and __**by called in sick**__ he means that she'd sent a rambling, incoherent, not completely lucid text to McGee which vaguely translated to 'got the flu, won't be coming in')_ and something he'd learned about Ziva was that she didn't call in sick. He was curious to observe the rarest of specimen - the lesser spotted, red-nosed, sniffling, fever flushed, Ziva David.

He'd turned up with his collection of James Bond movies, out of date cold and flu medicine he'd had in his apartment, and a smile on his face. She'd let him in with a reproachful glare and a barrage of coughs. He knew immediately he'd made the right choice when she first referred to him as _'Gibbs' _then _'McGee'_ before finally settling on _'Tony' (said through a blocked nose and a scratchy throat, it sounded more like 'Dony', but he knew what she meant) _and apologising in Hebrew.

He's still not sure how but he'd ended the day sprawled on her couch, James Bond marathon on the TV and Ziva's head on his chest - the heat from her cheek burning him through his t-shirt as she shivered even under two hoodies _(one of which had gone missing from his go bag four months ago, at the time he thought he'd left it at the crappy little motel they'd been forced to spend the night at after bad weather delayed their trip home)_ and a blanket, each breath a soft rattle in her chest. It had almost been worth ending up getting sick himself _(especially when a still-pale but otherwise recovered Ziva showed up on his doorstep with home cooking and proper medication)_.

There was the time six months ago when Tony ended up in a minor car accident _(between the two of them Tony never would've guessed that he'd be the first one to end up in hospital with car-related injuries)_. He'd woken up with his left arm in plaster, a sharp pain in his torso, and, most surprisingly, Ziva holding his good hand, her thumb running across his knuckles. He was struck by how small and delicate and remarkably un-assassin-like her hand seemed.

Even after a particularly hard Gibbs-slap, he'd sometimes feel her hand rubbing gently over the stinging spot and he would tell her to stop in case they both got slapped again for _playing grabass in the squad room_ but he decided pretty quickly it'd be worth it.

And who could possibly forget the time in the men's bathroom post Somalia when it seemed as though even the emotional barriers between them couldn't quite stop them from touching each other. Her hand on his face as she raised herself to her tip-toes so she could press her lips to his slightly stubbly cheek _(how had he not noticed the height difference before? Had she always been that short?)_. His hands leaping first to grasp her shoulders and then his right hand against her cheek before he took off, part of his brain asking him why he'd just done that. Neither of their actions had felt entirely platonic.

After Mike Franks died as he cupped her face and she rested her head against his shoulder all barriers - emotional and physical - finally crumbled. It said a lot that the moment hadn't even been spoiled by the appearance of Abby and McGee, if anything it made it more poignant, it was a family coming together to mourn the loss of one of their own.

"You know I know who you are, right?" He mumbles as the movements of her fingers slow, as if she too is on the verge of sleep.

"Yes, Tony, I know you know who I am," she sounds amused, her voice warm from the wine and the food and, he likes to think, his scintillating, concussed company.

Her answer satisfies him, "Good." He pauses to try and arrange some semblance of a thought, "Can I stay here tonight?" He twists his neck to look up at her and it may just be the lighting but her face framed above him looks almost angelic as she bites her lip, pretending to contemplate her answer. "Ducky said I shouldn't be alone tonight," he clumsily taps his temple, deliberately playing up the pain, "you know, cause I could die."

"Well, in that case, I suppose you'd better. I wouldn't want your death on my conscience." She uses about two long words too many but he gets the gist anyway and, knowing that she isn't about to kick him out, settles for closing his eyes, a soft sigh escaping his mouth as her ministrations resume.

Yeah, he knows who she is alright. And sometimes he thinks he might just love her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, so I'm not sure if this chapter really works but here it is...**

**2\. Ziva**

Tony likes calling her by her name.

McGee has a nickname for every day of the year, Gibbs is _boss_, Abby is _Abs_, Palmer's the autopsy gremlin, and Ducky… well, that's obvious. But he feels no real need to give Ziva one most of the time, not because she isn't one of them, she is, she proved that quickly enough. The truth is, he just really likes her name, likes the way it sounds. _Ziva, Ziva, Ziva._ Could be because it's an exotic splash of colour in his mostly red, white, and blue American world; if you asked Ducky he would probably be able to pinpoint the exact psychological reason why Tony's so fascinated with her name but he's content living with his own particular brand of insanity; keeping up the _riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma _nature of Ziva's name.

_Ziva…_

It's standard ground, neutral.

It's what he calls her first thing in the morning when he's jonesing for a coffee because _of course _he'd been running late then some _jackass _had to go and crash into a pole, shutting down an entire block for the rest of the day, meaning Tony didn't have time to stop at the only halfway decent coffee shop within a ten mile radius unless he wanted to be an hour and a half late and _you are listening to me, aren't you Ziva? _She diligently types away at her computer, blatantly ignoring his whining, as she takes a smug sip from the cup sitting on her desk.

"Oh, I am sorry," she says sweetly, noticing his pained grimace and holding the cup out to him, "would you like a sip?"

There's probably some sort of catch, there always is with her, but he's way too desperate to consider the consequences; she'd just drank some herself so at least he knows that it isn't poisoned, not unless she's far more committed to screwing with him than he thought. He takes the cup from her and tips it up, expecting the much needed hit of caffeine, what he gets instead is… nothing, not even the dregs.

He's pretty sure he actually lets out a whine, like a dog that's just had its tail stepped on. "You're a sick chick, Ziva, a very, _very_ sick chick."

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It's what he yells helplessly into the ether when her driving exceeds what he deems an acceptable speed _(and he isn't exactly McNanny himself when it comes to driving)_, as he clutches the _oh shit _handle with all his might and tries not to weep, internally reciting the Hail Mary just in case someone up there can hear him _(it's times like this he notices just how manic her teeth- baring smile looks_).

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It's what he grits out when he's trying to be professional and she's standing there with innocent brown eyes, a hat with a hole in the bill, and an irritatingly straight face as she mangles any and all idioms that come out her mouth, no matter how freakin' serious the situation is and he just _knows_ she does it on purpose. _(We're tryin' to interview the grieving widow here, Ziva, mind not giving the impression that NCIS is in the habit of hiring crazy Mossad assassins who can't even say porcupine right?) _

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It's what he says as he whips out the grey one size fits all lederhosen he'd impulsively bought for her in the Düsseldorf airport and if his subordinates dare to question just why he decided that was an appropriate gift to buy then he'll tell them it's an inside joke between him and the _little Israeli_ that they absolutely do not need to know the punchline to.

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It's what he calls her when she coats the eye sockets of his binoculars in black polish because _you know I'll have to get you back for this, right? _

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It's what he sing-songs as he looks up from the report he's been so intently working on for the last three hours only to see his partner fast asleep at her desk, her face smushed against her keyboard. She gives a low, grunting snore in response, not bothering to crack open an eyelid.

He smiles and does a silent version of the evil laugh (_mwah hah hah hah hah_) as he steeples his fingers _(eeexcellent)_, his mind kicking into high gear. He takes his time debating the perfect way to wake her, aiming for equal parts funny and terrifying. He could sneak up behind her except she's commented on his lack of stealth so many times that she's lucky he's got a strong ego or else her insults might actually bother him. He could go with the rubber band or paper ball except it's been done how many times now _(albeit usually to McGee… in Tony's experience, it works every time)_. He could handcuff her to her chair or her desk with the fuzzy, non standard issue handcuffs he's got in the bottom drawer of his desk _(a _**_very thoughtful _**_gift he'd received during last year's Secret Santa; he never did find out just who was responsible, he's still not fully convinced that it wasn't Ziva despite her insistence that, 'for the last time, I did not take part in the Secret Santa, Tony, I do not celebrate Christmas')_ except she'd probably be out of them before he could so much as snap a picture, not only making his efforts useless but also resulting in her asking him many, many questions, enjoying every second of his squirming embarrassment.

In the end he takes too long in deciding because McGee, fresh from a nap on Abby's futon, rounds the corner with clomping steps and does it for him.

When she sits up, Tony can't help but smile, all disappointment at his ruined opportunity fading fast. He's not sure what's more endearing - the slight kicked puppy, pouting expression on her face, the messy bird's nest of tangled curls and the smeared makeup around her eyes making her look like the love child of Dolly Parton and a panda, or the fact that her cheek bares the battle scars from her hard-earned nap - several red marks creasing her skin in the distinct pattern of the up, down, left, and right keys and he doesn't think he's ever seen something so adorable; in that moment, if you'd told him she was an overworked, rundown pre-school teacher he would definitely have believed you.

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It's what he shouts in a drunken greeting as her pyjama clad form enters the dingy bar he's been sitting in since leaving work that afternoon _(not the sexy lingerie style pyjamas he frequently imagines her in… not usual bar attire either but he can make it work, she looks sexy in that comfortable, relaxed, stay at home kind of way)._ He's been here every night since Jenny died but tonight was different, rather than self-pityingly nursing two or three pints for four hours, he'd immediately started with a double scotch on the rocks and only progressed from there, each order thereafter placed in an accent that sounding increasingly Connery-sounding the longer the night went on. The day after tomorrow he ships out to the USS Ronald Reagan to begin his months long stint as agent afloat, he figured he might as well enjoy his remaining time on dry land.

She ignores him, immediately striding over to the bartender, placing a few scrunched-up bills in his hand and muttering out a '_thanks for looking after him_'. Tony's cop skills _(no matter how alcohol impaired they are)_ tell him that he's the _him_ in question but why she thinks he would need looking after, he doesn't know. It doesn't matter because once she takes him by the arm and guides him out of the mostly empty bar, she's the only thing he can concentrate on.

"So," he slurs, stumbling over a chair leg, "where we goin'? Your place or mine?" Her hands are all over him in an attempt to keep them both upright; they stagger from side to side like a lopsided four legged creature, his shoulder smacks off the door frame and her elbow accidentally slams into his gut. They stumble out into the night, her arm hooking itself around his waist to stop him from tripping over the sidewalk. "Hey, you wanna grope me, you could at least buy me a drink first," he says with a drunken laugh.

"Maybe if you'd called me earlier, I would have," she says, propping his body up against her car and rummaging around in pocket for her keys. In the silence of the dark street he starts up a rousing rendition of Dream On _(his voice cracking every which way on the power note)_, his mind telling him that silence is bad, silence gives him time to think and the whole point of tonight was to not think at all. He's a bit more sober thanks to the fresh air but he barely feels it when his head connects with the door frame, the rag-doll effect in full force. _(He wouldn't be surprised if she did it on purpose to shut him up, nor would he really blame her to be honest.)_

She slides into the driver's seat and look over at him before starting the car. Her eyes are dark, twin pools of chocolate. He likes chocolate, almost as much as he likes her eyes, and her lips – pink and kissable, her hair, and her body, small and lithe and, at first glance, unassuming _(as someone who's seen beneath the layers of clothing, he'll never make that mistake again)_, nope, he _definitely_ can't forget about her body, he loves that too. Her curly hair and her honey skin, the way she swings her hips as she walks. _Mmmm…_

"You are staring," she says. _He really hopes he's not drooling._

_She's gorgeous._

"You're gorgeous," he says, because for some insane reason he thinks it's something he should probably put out there.

"Thank you," she says as she starts the car, he doesn't have to be sober to recognise the tone of her voice - secretly pleased but trying to keep up the pretence of aloofness, he's not fooled, "but you are drunk."

"Doesn't mean it's not true."

"You will not remember this conversation in the morning."

He grins, wide and blissful. "Pro'ly not," he agrees.

"You should stop talking then."

"Pro'ly," he agrees _(he'd agree to rob a band, commit murder, admit to a murder _**_she _**_committed, if she asked him to)_, his head thumping back against the headrest, the soft sound of melodic Hebrew singing from the radio lulling him to sleep.

The next thing he's aware of, he's waking up on his couch, a sticky note stuck to his forehead _('there is Advil on the counter, I recommend trying jasmine tea with lime, do not push it until you have tried it')_ and a glass of water sitting on his coffee table. He debates calling her for all of three seconds before he remembers that today's the day she's due to fly back to Israel. He checks his watch and winces when he sees that it's already into the afternoon, she'll be in the air right about now. He flops back onto the sofa, head aching and feeling lonelier than ever.

Months later when he finally lays eyes on her again, she looks better than ever and the sexual tension's at an all time high. They solve the case with their usual bickering couple routine and upon his return home as they stand in the squad room with McGee and Abby, she's right next to him, patting his shoulder and looking at him in a way that makes him think that maybe she's missed him just as much as he's missed her.

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It's what he whispers as he takes her as gently as he can by the arm, lifting her out of the chair as she stares blankly at the dead terrorist on the floor, pooling blood mixing with spilled Caf-Pow in what he thinks should be a highly symbolic scene but his serum addled mind can't quite place why that is.

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It's what he says as he urges her to _come on_, to finally tell someone _something _about what happened. She looks anywhere but at him, intent on continuing their not-entirely approved warehouse search. He's tired of pretending and he'd bet everything he owns _(okay, everything apart from the signed special edition of Casino Royale, that's probably worth a small fortune at this point)_ that she is too. The old Ziva wouldn't've thought twice about obfuscating _(to use one of McGemcity's fancy writer words)_ the law, this Ziva seems to equate it to terrorism.

"What Saleem did was bad enough," she says definitively, "becoming like him would be worse." It isn't much, but it's more than he had before and it's likely all he's gonna get.

Weeks later they interview Kaylen Burrows and he learns a lot more than he wanted to - her face and voice as she talks with the woman across the table from her telling him everything he didn't need to know. And as the probie witters on about _why would you let someone get away with rape_, Tony cringes in the background and wills him to shut up before someone gets hurt.

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It's what he breathes in utter relief as they find her, bound and gagged and bleeding on the floor of a sweltering barn, a barn far too similar to the Somalian cell, except this time he isn't the one holding her or helping her to her feet or checking to make sure that she's actually there, that honour goes to her sketchy boyfriend and the way CI-Ray says her names sounds all wrong to Tony's ears.

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It's what he calls her when he asks if she's quoting a movie, his eyes moving from the old pictures of him and his mom to Ziva's face and it's clear that something between them has shifted. Like tectonic plates. Except the result of this earthquake won't be widespread destruction and chaos. In fact, he's fairly sure this is an outcome he's going to like very much.

"No," she says, her expression exceptionally, unashamedly affectionate, "I quoted a book... that was made into a movie."

He remembers a similar conversation they'd had almost half a decade ago after he found a _movies for morons_ book in her desk while he was snooping _(incidentally he'd also found a notebook filled with Hebrew script, an ancient bottle of painkillers that had never been opened, a packet of the thick, aloe tissues that he knew he'd be stealing when allergy season rolled around, and a pair of sunglasses he'd never seen her wear)_. It feels like they've come full circle, that they've found a way to balance each other out. She's the pah. She zigs while he zags. She bobs and he weaves. She rocks when he rolls.

The term _opposites attract_ comes to mind and for the first time in Tony's life, that doesn't sound like a bad thing.

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It's what he calls her as they work on crushing the spirit of a juvenile but dangerous hipster hacker and for the first time since Eli David was found slumped in his own blood, things feel easy and normal. They fly him to 'Cuba' and Tony spends the flight eating the snacks she bought him despite the turbulence messing with his stomach just to see her smile and roll her eyes at him. He manages to get an exhaled laugh out of her when he throws a gummy bear in the air and misses, the sticky sweet bouncing off his nose at his attempt to catch it like a trained seal. Eventually they turn it into a game, throwing snacks at each other and trying to catch them in their mouths, both of them completely ignoring the unconscious body of Ajay Khan sprawled on the floor. She has to dive to catch a malt ball that he'd thrown slightly off target, her small 'ha!' of success warming him from head to toe as she pops up victoriously.

He offers up a sarcastic round of applause, complete with a comment about her _very talented mouth_. He misses her return serve, the chocolate whizzing by his ear as lets out a not entirely sincere, "damn it".

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It's what he yells in a desperate warning even though there's nothing either of them can do about the car about to t-bone them.

The last thing he's aware of is the feel of her nails digging into the back of his hand and the image of her with a diamond ring sparkling on her finger _(and is that wedding bells he hears, or is it just a car horn?)_.

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It's the name that causes a smile to spread across his face when it pops up on his screen, and he feels thoroughly like a thirteen year old with a crush as he reads her most recent message. He's booking a plane ticket to Tel Aviv before he knows what he's doing. Because this is it, isn't it? Despite their recent talks of _friendship_, they haven't been _just friends_ for a while now; people who are _just friends_ don't sit across from each other and discuss eloping, no matter how abstract the terms.

_Count to a million, I'm on my way._

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It's what he murmurs against her wonderfully warm skin as they lie in their own little bubble in an Israeli farmhouse, knowing that this is more or less goodbye, but wiling, for once, to remain fully in the moment. She is beautiful and damaged and worthy of so much more than she thinks; he is wiped out and relieved and unsure of how to handle the situation. He settles for placing a kiss to her sweat slicked neck as she exhaustedly intertwines their hands - her right with his left. And for that single moment, everything in the universe is right.

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It's what runs through his head on a loop when Gibbs shocks them all with _there were no survivors_ and again, years later, when he finds out that Ziva's dead and he's got an almost two year old daughter who looks so much like her it's almost painful _(Tali becomes the youngest love of his life the minute she looks back at him with eyes that so closely resemble his own)_. As if some sort of ritual repetition of her name will bring her back to him like one of Abby's weird necromancy ceremonies or something. As if _wishing on a happy little thought_ or clicking his heels three times and chanting that _there's no place like home_, would undo everything.

Both times she turns out to be alive and he can't help but wonder if his desperate little prayer had actually worked.

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In some instances though, _Ziva _just isn't enough to express… whatever it is that he wants to express. Whenever this is the case, his go-to is almost always _Zee-vah_, a little too much emphasis placed on the wrong syllable. Usually it's when he's just won whatever bet they've had going on, or when he's found irrefutable proof that he's right and she's wrong, or when he _really_ wants to irritate her.

"I told you, Zee-vah, it's always the wife, now pay up," he says from his position opposite her, his feet up on the desk as he navigates a particularly tricky bing ball level. He doesn't quite manage to dodge the rubber band that she flicks in his direction. Soon bands are flying everywhere and he knows they're in for a world of pain from their boss when he comes back but Tony doesn't care as his most recently pinged band bounces right off her forehead.

"And that's a _brilliant_ three pointer by DiNozzo," he crows in the style of an NBA commentator, pumping his fist in a goofy celebration. He shuts up a second later when she gets him dangerously close to his eye, letting out a triumphant whoop of her own.

He never does get the twenty bucks she owes him. He does, however, get a swift slap to the head when Gibbs gets back to see rubber bands scattered all over the floor and his two agents with red welts all over their face and arms, half-guilty, half-caught expressions on their faces, like two school kids being told off by the teacher. He has to force himself not to look in the direction of his partner in crime because if he does he knows he won't be able to stop himself from laughing.

"English, Zee-vah," he has to remind her as she downs another mojito and starts speaking every other sentence in a language no one else understands. It might've been annoying if it wasn't for the fact that hearing Ziva jump back and forth between languages like it's the most natural thing in the world seems to turn him into Gomez Addams. She glares and says something in Hebrew and he chooses to blames his quickening heartbeat on his own drunkenness.

"Come on, Zee-vah, that's mine," he whines when she steals his popcorn or his pizza or even his beer as they lounge in her living room watching whatever old movie he'd decided she absolutely _had_ to see if she ever wanted to understand American culture. She just grins widely and steals another bite or sip as if she's never had a problem with his germs before, her expression just _daring_ him to stop her. He mock-glares and pretends that he isn't happier than he's been since before Gibbs left.

A few years into their partnership, post agent afloat and Moroccan nightclub bombings, he notices that this draws small smiles and fondly rolled eyes as opposed to death glares and threats of paperclip attacks. Despite her claims of _you get orders and you follow them _she smiles more during this time, he likes to imagine he has something to do with that.

:&:

There's a while, after Somalia, where he avoids calling her anything entirely.

For the first week or so after she comes back _(as a visitor, which even he has to admit looks wrong) _he tries to avoid talking to her at all. Strange, given that days ago she was standing next to him at the men's room's sink saying _that_ _you have had my back, that you have always had my back_, and she was kissing him _(his cheek, but you're damn right he's counting it)_ and he was totally unsure of where an appropriate place to put his hands was _(he'd been so tempted to rest them on her hips, twisting his head so that her lips met his as opposed to his cheek)_. For some reason after _couldn't live without you _and _you should not have come_ and _okay, tried, couldn't_ and _it is I who am sorry _calling her _Ziva _seems both far too formal and far too informal at the same time. Tony, being Tony, reverts to not calling her anything at all. This seems to work perfectly fine for her because she doesn't call him anything either. Sometimes he looks up at the same time she does and their eyes lock and for those few, smouldering, seconds he feels like everything's in its right place again. Then she goes back to talking on the phone or writing in a leather-bound notebook and the moment's gone.

After Paris he never has any trouble knowing what to call her again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Note that these're just being posted in the order that they're written. **

**Also, this is probably the fifth different version of this chapter and I'm still not happy with it. Still, here it is… let me know what you think. **

**(If you liked the season 17 openers you should check out my oneshot ****_And So It Goes _****which looks into some of the father-daughter moments between Ziva and Gibbs throughout the series.)**

**3\. Ima **

This one's by far the most painful, mostly because she isn't around to hear him say it.

He never wanted kids, that was always the line he spouted and while it _was_ true it probably wasn't for the reason most people assumed. Most people probably took one look at him and his lifestyle and assumed that it was because he was too immature, too _life fast, die young_, too interested in meaningless one-night stands and casual sex to bother himself with crying, screaming rugrats. That wasn't it. He didn't want kids simply because he didn't want to be responsible for screwing up someone's life; he wouldn't be a good father, he didn't know _how_ to be a good father because while DiNozzo Senior may be a bit more present now, when Tony was a kid all he'd taught him was that being a father meant drinking too much, sleeping with any vaguely good looking woman that crossed your path, and abandoning your kid in hotels for days at a time or packing them off to boarding school at the first sign of any inconvenience. Not really the best frame of reference.

To say Tali comes as a surprise would be the biggest understatement since _I think we need a bigger boat_. He can't believe _this_ is how he finds out that for the last two years he's technically been a father. He should be pissed at her - at Ziva - for keeping this from him and no doubt he will be, eventually, but now isn't the time for that. Now, he's gonna make sure his little girl's okay, make sure the fucking one eyed teabag ends up with at least one bullet, preferably more, in that shiny bald head of his _(maybe shoot out his one working eye first for good measure, let him know that this is what happens when you go after someone Tony loves)_, and then he's gonna do what he's got to do - namely get some answers because there's no way that Ziva David died in a _fucking_ mortar attack and then settle down somewhere not here to raise his kid in peace. Maybe Paris _(Ziva loves Paris)_.

His chest twinges as he watches his little girl, _their_ little girl, examine the Star of David around her neck with obvious fascination. _(Come to think of it, it probably wasn't the greatest idea ever, giving a not-quite two-year-old a necklace with such sharp points on it.)_ She's been more interested with that damn necklace than she's been with any of the toys Jimmy had given him and it's not hard to see why. Necklace equals ima and ima equals home. He may be her father _(oh God, he's a father, he's never gonna get used to that, is he?)_ but, no matter how much Ziva told her about him, he isn't home to her, he isn't safe, he isn't the person she'd instinctually run to. He's a stranger to her _(goddammit, Ziva, why'd you have to play it this, huh?)_.

"Ima," she says again, tracing the star with her chubby finger and he's catapulted years into the past.

:&:

It started at the crappy new year's party neither of them really wanted to go to. He spent the majority of the night acting like the life of the party he was known to be, spinning stories that were only slightly exaggerated _(such as the heroic tale of how he managed to dodge bullets using a move made famous by The Matrix; the reality being that he'd tripped over his own feet, narrowly avoiding having his head blown off and ultimately needing Ziva to bail him out)_ to try and impress their latest batch of baby agents – fresh faced, idealistic, goddamn _kids _who probably still thought that being a federal agent was exactly like The Bourne Identity or 24 _(it really wasn't, there was a shit-ton more paperwork for starters)_.

At fifteen minutes to midnight he watched her place her untouched plate of greasy takeout down on the table before slipping silently out the room _(he hadn't taken his eyes off her all night and he wasn't about to start)_. She hadn't said a single word since she got there, she wouldn't even be there if it wasn't for Vance downright ordering her to be _("If I have to put up with their brand of crazy, so do you, David," he'd said, cornering her in the squadroom early one morning, the fact that he'd been wearing light-up reindeer antlers at time had detracted from the statement slightly but there was no doubt it was an order nonetheless)_. As soon as she rounded the corner, he downed the remaining dregs of champagne from his red solo cup before apologising to the agents gathered around him and taking off after her.

He wasn't really sure where she'd go but he _did_ know where he'd go and one of the things he'd noticed about them was that occasionally, great minds thought alike _(when he'd mentioned that to her, she'd snorted and responded with a dry, "In that case, I obviously need to get my brain checked immediately, it must be terminal")_.

Sure enough, he found her sitting on the counter of the men's room _(oh, the memories)_, swinging her legs back and forth and with the sort of blank expression on her face that he was becoming more and more accustomed to.

"Knew I'd find you here," he said from his position by the door, trying not to startle her. She'd been twitchy as all hell ever since they got her back and he wasn't sure how many knives she had on her person; what a way to kick off the new year that would be – a knife to the face courtesy of Ziva David.

"Why are you here?" She asked, not even bothering to look up at him.

_(And fuck, that felt like she threw a very non-literal knife into his chest._

_"__Why are you here?" _

_Did she really have to use __**those**__ words?)_

"Technically, Miss David, I have more of a right to be in here than you do. This is the men's bathroom and, unless something major's changed since we went undercover four years ago, you're not a man."

"And you are?"

"I have the equipment to prove it, would you like a visual demonstration?"

He could see her fighting a smile. "I have seen it all before, DiNozzo, and I was far from impressed."

"The noises you were making say otherwise."

"You obviously can't tell when a woman is faking."

He grinned slightly tipsily as he wandered over to her, leaning his back against the sinks, his hip touching her swinging leg.

"You're gonna miss the fireworks," he said, watching her expression falter for a second. "Though somethin' tells me you don't really care."

"I don't see the point," she said with a listless wave of her hand _(pretty much everything she'd done recently had been listless)_, "it is just a load of bright lights and loud noises. But you should go and enjoy them, it is part of the New Year tradition, isn't it?"

He shrugged. "Not really the New Year tradition I'm interested in."

"Ah, your kiss at midnight thing, yes?"

"I'll have you know that I haven't gone without it since I was twelve and I don't plan on breaking that streak now."

She rolled her eyes so hard he was surprised she didn't fall over. "Why are you here then? Shouldn't you be trying to find someone to fulfil this tradition with?"

"That your subtle way of shooting me down?" He nudged her leg with his hip. It was only after the words were out there that he realised he probably should have chosen them better considering that months ago she had almost _literally _shot him down.

Luckily for him, she seemed to move right over it, for once actually picking up on a figure of speech rather than taking it at face value. "I was not aware I _needed _to shoot you down."

Out of the corner of his eye he watched as her hand absently moved towards her throat before she realised what she was doing and the hand dropped back into her lap.

"You should get a new one," he said, "I know it wouldn't be the same but… new year, new beginnings, right?" She met his eyes for the first time that night as he offered up a one-armed shrug and added on a, "Looks wrong without it." He watched as she bit her lip, absently picking at a hangnail, and he couldn't help but think that he really didn't like those new tics of hers, they spoke to a nervousness that had never been there before.

The sound of first explosion, effectively cut off anything she might've said and he'd admit, that under the circumstances, he hated it _(don't get him wrong, he loved the raise a beer, fourth of July fireworks, but standing in a bathroom with a skittish Ziva David and trying hard _**_not _**_to think about the past __365__days on a night where thinking about the year gone by was pretty much the whole point… he thought he would much prefer silence)_. Tony winced in abject sympathy as she jumped so violently she almost slipped off her perch, her eyes wild and panicked, like a cornered animal. "Yeah, I figured you _really_ didn't like 'em."

Her mouth opened and closed several times, clearly scrambling for an excuse, _any _excuse, before she seemed to give up, only managing a slightly weak, "Loud noises."

"I know," he assured, she bit her lip again looking so very, _very _close to tears as she nodded. Because he did. He did know that kind of thing about her. The things not very many people did know – her almost paralysing fear of spiders _(during one of their movie nights he'd spotted one of the eight legged freaks on the living room ceiling and, upon him pointing it out to her, she'd bolted to the bedroom and locked herself in until he'd 'taken care of it')_, her love of musicals _(especially the Sound of Music, God those singing nuns and lonely goatherds made so many appearances in so many different nightmares; the most horrific of the lot being the one where Julie Andrews jumped right out of his TV screen to murder him with a few of her favourite things - cream coloured ponies and crisp apple strudels, doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles, were just a few of his __**least**__ favourite things)_, her inability to keep a houseplant alive for more than a month or two _(the woman managed to kill a cactus for fuck's sake, he didn't even know it was _**_possible _**_to kill a cactus)_, and that when allergy season rolled around her go-to remedy was tea with honey and lemon and, if she was feeling particularly shit and provided she didn't have to work, a dash of warm whisky _("Jesus, Ziva, it tastes like death," he'd coughed upon taking a gulp from the cup sitting innocently on her table, she'd done nothing but raise an eyebrow and take a challenging sip of her own with barely a twitch)_.

Yeah, he'd say he knew her.

"Happy New Year, Ziva," he whispered in her ear, just before he leant in to place a soft kiss to her cheek, lingering for a beat or two longer than he needed to. They'd always had a problem with personal space _(it was basically non-existent, to be honest)_, but over the last few weeks he'd noticed a spike in the… physical moments between them. If he was Abby or McGee he would have compiled the data at hand, maybe tried to figure out what it all meant. But he was Tony DiNozzo and she was Ziva David, so he figured the best way to make the discovery was simply to let it play out – scene by scene, page by page – like one of his movies or one of her books except there was no skipping to the end to see what happened, no fast forwarding through and no rewinds either, no flipping back to re-read a chapter.

It was playing out entirely in real time and for once he was happy to go with it.

He pulled back an inch or two, pushed her hair back behind her ear and planted another kiss to her cheek, slightly closer to her lips. It wasn't romantic. It was actually one of the least romantic moments between them ever. No, it wasn't the sort of kiss that said _I want you in my bed_; it was the sort of kiss that said _I'm here _and_ I've got your six_. It was the sort of kiss that said _I'm glad you're home_ and _I couldn't live without you _and_ you're not replaceable_. It was the sort of kiss that said _I'm sorry _and_ I hope you know that_. It was the sort of kiss that said _maybe someday_.

It wasn't romantic but it _was_ intimate - the close proximity, the hitching of her breath, the fact that up close like that he could see the tears sparkling in her dark eyes, the quivering of her lip - and he was sure that it meant a hell of a lot more than if he'd cheapened the moment by trying to hit on her _(he was finally learning)_.

He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and forced himself to pull away. "Buona notte," he said, his voice soft in the echoey room, as he turned to walk out, deciding the best course of action was to give her a moment to herself.

"Happy New Year, Tony," she called out as he got to the door, her legs swinging again but her face a little less haunted, she even offered up a slightly twisted smile. It wasn't much but he decided to take it.

He grinned and nodded, gave her a flagging wave, and left the room, content with the knowledge that she wouldn't be doing anything stupid within the next twelve hours.

The matter was resolved a week later when he walked into the squad room and saw the glittering of a new chain around her neck.

"You got a new one."

"New year, new beginnings, right?"

"I like it," he told her, flashing her a crooked smile, "looked wrong without it."

"Thank you, Tony," she said sincerely, her fingers toying with the silver star. "You were right."

He leaned back in his chair, swinging his feet up onto the desk. "I usually am."

:&:

"Yeah," he forces out, shaking his head clear, "that's Ima's so keep it safe because it's a _very_ special necklace. Okay?" The girl nods her head with determination _(the genetics are strong with this one, it's like he's looking at a mini-Ziva)_. "You want to hear a story about it?" Again, Tali merely nods. He's not sure if she's this quiet because she inherited Ziva's silent, brooding ninja gene or if it's because less than a few days ago her house was blown up, her mother killed along with it and now she's living with the man she knows is aba but other than that has no real connection to at all. _(Yeah, now that he thinks about it, it's almost definitely the latter.)_ He's so out of his depth here.

"Once upon a time there was a princess, a really beautiful ninja princess, and around her neck she always wore a golden necklace, a lot like this one," he taps the star hanging from the chain. "This necklace… it meant everything to her…"

He goes on to tell her the tale of captured princesses, evil kings, and determined knights. He tells her about a princess who, while she was back with the knight, still wasn't free, the king had her trapped even from far, far away.

She lost her good luck charm.

He tells her that the princess decided she didn't want to be a princess anymore, she wanted to be something different, she wanted to help people and make the world a better place. He tells her that she didn't want to be a princess, she wanted to be a superhero instead and what did a superhero need?

She needed a shield. So, she bought one, a small star that would protect her for the rest of her life.

He tells her that the superhero did everything she could to make herself better again, turning her back on the evil king when he tried to take her away again because she found something much, much better - an actual family.

"And that superhero? That superhero's your Ima and she's out there, right now, saving the world."

Personally, he's really proud of his child friendly version of what happened post-Somalia. Tali… well… when he looks down to gauge her reaction he sees that she's fallen asleep, her head resting on his leg and he knows he'll do everything in his power to make sure no one ever, _ever_ hurts her again _(he can't even bring himself to be offended that she dozed off in the middle of his riveting story)_.

Ima and aba.

Ziva and Tony.

Whoulda thunk?

:&:

There are good days and bad days.

At the start it's mostly bad days.

Tali's a scared toddler who misses her mom and Tony's a terrified new father who also misses Tali's mom. When she cries he doesn't know how to calm her down in the way that Ziva no doubt did. She screams and yells, throws her toys at the wall and beats her small fists against Tony's knee _(if there was any doubt about her parentage, it ends right there)_. And part of him wants to curl up and cry too, because he doesn't know how to handle this any better than she does. But he's the adult in this situation _(in hindsight maybe packing up and moving to Paris all within a week and a half was a bit of a rash, spur of the moment thing, if he was still in DC he could at least call Gibbs or even Senior for help, they've got perspective and he so, _**_so _**_doesn't)_ so he has to pull himself together and take responsibility.

There are days, weeks, at a time where even getting out of bed is hard. He'd say he was depressed but he doesn't have the time to be depressed. He can't _afford_ to be depressed. He won't let his daughter see him break down, not before she's old enough to understand why her aba's upset. No, instead he plasters a smile on his face, even through hours and hours of brightly coloured, smiley, happy, dance-y cartoons that would normally be enough to make him want to blow his own brains out. He takes Tali to the park, to get ice cream, he tells her a new story each night as he tucks her into bed, he takes Hebrew classes because Ziva would want Tali to grow up hearing both English and Hebrew and he's not going to let a little thing like him not speaking the language take that away _(his accent may be terrible and his pronunciation even worse but he's learning and it's the thought that counts, right?)_, he teaches himself how to tie her hair into neat braids or ponytails _(YouTube really is a godsend)_ and all the while, he hopes that he's doing Ziva proud.

It gets harder when the inevitable happens. Ziva once said nothing was inevitable. She was wrong. Because a little girl wanting to know when mommy's coming home… that's as fucking inevitable as it gets.

And here comes the anger _(another inevitability)_ because thanks to Ziva he's the bad guy who has to tell her that he doesn't know but he _does_ know that Ima loves her very, very much. Cases with kids were always the hardest. This is even harder; this isn't just any kid, this is _his_ kid. His and Ziva's.

He wants to put his fist through the goddamn wall because _what is he supposed to say? _

"Ima's gone."

"Ima doesn't care enough to come home."

"Ima'll be home soon, I promise."

All of those would be lies and the one thing he swore he'd never do was lie to her. Ziva had grown up in a house where secrets and lies were the most frequent means of communication and it'd completely screwed up her life. He's not going to be the one to continue the pattern of father-child shittiness in their families.

"I don't know," he whispers into her hair, forcing himself to calm down, "I really don't know, bambina, but I'm sure Ima will be home as soon as she can be."

It's the one answer he can give her that isn't a lie; the rest of the world may be living under the impression that Ziva David is dead, but he knows better. Admittedly the answers he'd received during their short trip to Israel had been typically cryptic and vague but from what he could piece together based on his knowledge of spy-speak and his knowledge of Ziva, it sounded like someone out there wanted her dead _(considering her line of business, there's probably a whole line of people out there wanting revenge, it could __**literally **__be __anyone__) _so she'd used the attack as a means of faking her death and going underground.

The details may be sketchy but one thing he knows for sure is that she's still alive, and for whatever reason she wants the world to think she's dead; and, as much he hates it, it's something he has to learn to accept.

He's always understood her in a way very few others could and the message he's getting loud and clear here is simple: _take care of Tali, she needs you_.

So he will, he'll follow her wishes and every day he'll trust that Ziva, wherever she is, knows what the hell she's doing and he'll hope that one day she'll come home because he's not sure how much longer he can sit back and watch Tali miss her without doing something.

:&:

The first time he sees her, he's sure he's imagining things.

It happens on the day that he needs it the most. November the twelfth. Ziva's birthday.

Tony's not sure what stance Ziva took with Tali regarding religion - he's a _very_ lapsed catholic who hasn't been to confession since his mom dragged him there when he was seven to try and seek forgiveness for stealing his cousin's baseball; and in all the time he knew Ziva, as far as he's aware, the only time she set foot in a synagogue was after Eli was killed _(oh, how time flies)_ \- but they light a candle together anyway. He's fairly sure it's something both religions have in common, though he's a little hazy on the actual meanings _(he should really look that up)_.

"So," he claps his hands together and forces a smile as he watches the candle burn out, "ice cream or doughnuts?"

She looks at him and that expression right there is all Ziva, it's an expression that a two-and-a-half-year-old shouldn't have mastered, it's an expression that says _isn't it obvious, DiNozzo?_ "Ice-cream."

"Andiamo, bambina," he says, "ice-cream it is. Go on, go get your shoes."

Of course, it's not that simple what with Tali being at the age where no shoe seems to come in a pair and socks are things to be worn anywhere except on your feet. He's been doing this long enough by now to know the best ways to corral, bait, and just plain wrestle his very hyperactive daughter into her clothes but even so, it still takes them twenty minutes to get out the door.

As all parents of toddlers will tell you they've got the amazing ability to be filled with energy at times when they should have no energy at all and have no energy at times where they should be bouncing off the walls. It's how Tali ends up on Tony's shoulders as they walk the now familiar route home from the place a few streets over. She eats her chocolate ice-cream as he walks and he knows she's probably dropping flakes of cone or drips of ice-cream into his hair but he can't bring himself to care.

He likes to think he's actually pretty good at the whole parenting thing; sure, he's permanently exhausted and he hasn't had time to shave in days and most of the time, when he goes outside, he does so wearing clothes that the old DiNozzo wouldn't even wear around the house _(he's a far cry from the man who'd once boasted about his Ermenegildo Zegna suit, his Armani tie, his Dolce and Gabbana shirt, and his Gucci shoes)_.

It doesn't matter; he hasn't got anyone to look good for these days and he doubts his daughter, who's not even old enough to talk in proper sentences yet, minds too much about that coffee stain on his sleeve or the paint staining his jeans or the bits of food in his hair or the slight pen marks still visible on his face from when she got her sneaky little ninja hands on one of his permanent markers and decided that his face was the best thing to scribble all over after he made the mistake of falling asleep on the couch _(at least she hadn't decided to go all Picasso on the freshly-painted walls, that would've been much harder to take)_.

She only cares that he's the guy who gives her piggy-back rides around the living room; that he's the guy who attaches the family portrait she paints to the fridge with a fridge magnet, proudly putting her work on display for all to see _(he tries not to let it show that three clumsily painted stick figures - one blue, one red, and one yellow - standing next to each other brings a lump into his throat every time he sees it)_; and that he's the guy who kisses her scraped knee or scratched elbow better before magically healing it with a band-aid.

He's decidedly Very Special Agent no more, he's just a dad trying to do right by his kid. Instead of spending his weekend tracing phones or getting into fist fights with gang members _(fist fights that he wasn't even responsible for starting nine times outta ten)_, he spends it busting out his best dorky dad dance moves and slowly introducing his daughter to the wonderful world of classic cinema _(okay, so at this point the cinema in question might be things like Sesame Street and The Muppets but he's sure they'll get onto the real classics eventually)_. Instead of going out for drinks after work, he spends his evenings painting his daughter's room a shade of green that shares its name with Gibbs's dead daughter, a smooth jazz or classic rock record spinning on the turntable as he sings along. Hell, he doesn't drink _at all _anymore, and while his diet still may not be great, he's trying to make sure a heart attack doesn't get him before he turns fifty _(he even bought _**_quinoa _**_the other week _–_big mistake, horrible texture, even worse taste, never again, but the point is that he tried). _

When they pass the small children's playground, Tali seems to perk up, tugging insistently on a handful of his hair _(fucking owww) _with sticky, chocolate coated hands and pointing at the swings.

"Aba," she insists, "swing, aba, swing."

"Really? But I thought you were tired…"

"Aba," she whines, drawing the word out and bouncing up and down on his shoulders slightly _(one of these days his back's finally going to just snap like a twig)_ and he knows he's powerless to resist, hell, she probably does too _(he's not sure if got the ability to manipulate people like that from him or Ziva but either way, Tali's a kid who knows how to get what she wants)_.

"Okay, okay, you win," he sighs, though he doesn't mind at all. "As you wish, mi principessa."

:&:

"Higher, aba, higher," Tali urges, kicking her little legs, as he gives the swing a gentle push. He smiles as he pushes a little harder, the sound of Tali's shrieking laughter warming his chest. Okay, so he might not have Ziva, but he does have the next best thing and that's enough… for now.

"Higher?" Tony asks, already knowing the answer. The girl _is_ Ziva's daughter, after all.

"Higher!"

"Hold on tight!"

That's when he sees her.

Standing by the entrance to the park, leaning against the metal fence in a way that seems casual but he suspects is the absolute opposite. He blinks once, twice, three times, but she's still standing there, clear as day – crazy curls, alert dark eyes that track everyone who walks by, and all.

_Ziva. _

Their eyes lock and he wonders if this is some sort of dream or hallucination. He opens his mouth, whether to call her name or to say something to the still-giggling Tali _(something along the lines of, "look over there, there's ima, she's home")_; it doesn't matter because before he can so much as squeak, she's shaking her head and putting a finger to her lips. _Keep quiet, it's not safe. _

He closes his mouth again and nods his head. He watches as her eyes move from him to the girl in the swing and he knows she's having to use all of her willpower to stop herself from sprinting over. The second she sees Tali, she seems to fold in on herself and he can see, even from all the way over here, that she's struggling to breathe _(and now _**_he's _**_the one struggling not to sprint over to _**_her_**_)_. He sees her eyes close for a few beats as she breathes deeply and when they open again, they slide back from Tali to him.

She cocks her head in silent question, business as usual once more: _how are you?_

He nods once in return, as much of an assurance as he can give that _we're both okay, I promise_.

For the first time in his life, he really wishes he knew some form of sign language or semaphore or… shit, just some way of communicating with her because he knows what this is. This is as close as she's going to let herself get until whatever trouble she's gotten herself into this time is gone. This… this is her birthday present to herself, a brief thirty second look-in at what her life could be, _should be_ like right now. _(He wonders if this is __**actually**__ the first time she's checked in on them since she '__died' __or if it's just the first time she's let him see her.)_

She raises her hand in a sad wave and when he next blinks, she's gone.

_The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist. _

_And like that… he's gone. _

Poof.

No trace she'd ever been standing there at all. He lets his eyes scan the street in both directions but it's a pointless move, he can't catch a glimpse of her anywhere.

_Damn it…_

:&:

That evening, after Tali's been put to bed, he pulls the dusty shoebox of photos out from underneath his bed. He resists the temptation to go for the bottle of bourbon Gibbs had given him as a goodbye gift _(like he said, he's been a good boy recently)_. Instead, he plonks himself down on the couch, places the box on the coffee table and he just sits there, looking at it as if they're locked in a Mexican standoff; it's only after an hour of staring it down that he gathers up the courage to flip it open.

A lot of them are crap – spontaneous, candid snapshots that are blurry and poorly lit – and a higher percentage still are crime scene goof offs he could never quite bring himself to throw out.

_The professional, Vogue style photo shoot involving him, McGee, and a giant stuffed bear from Ziva's first case on the team. The bear holding him in a headlock, the bear wearing his NCIS hat, him pretending to square up to the bear like it was the world's most one-sided boxing match ever (what weight class was a brown bear? Super-mega heavyweight?), and one of Ziva looking incredibly concerned, clearly wondering if it was too late to change her mind and go back to Israel._

_The close-up shot of Ziva's ass he'd taken while she was tangled up with McGee across the front seats of Otto, a possibly murderous automated vehicle (it all makes sense in context, honestly… sort of). _

_A picture McGee had snapped of his own feet after he tripped over their victim's body (Tony may or may not have had something to do with that, he's still admitting to nothing). _

_The evidence of one of their little competitions - who could take the most pictures of Gibbs before he noticed - dozens and dozens of pictures of the generally scowling, occasionally full-on glaring, always coffee gulping Leroy Jethro Gibbs. The bet had ended with twin head smacks and Gibbs declaring McGee, the only one who hadn't taken part in the childishness, the winner, meaning Ziva and Tony had to pay for all his drinks that night. (The probie had more than taken advantage of their newfound generosity and racked up a bar tab that Tony would've found incredibly impressive if it wasn't for the fact that he was responsible for paying half. The guy was an award-winning writer, he didn't need his two cash-strapped colleagues buying his drinks for him.)_

But there are definitely some of them worth looking at, worth putting in the empty picture frames he's got stored somewhere.

_Ziva's last birthday with them in the squadroom when he and McGee had surprised her with streamers and a cake, both of them donning ridiculous party hats. A picture taken at the exact moment that Tony pushed Ziva's face right into the middle of a perfectly frosted, neatly iced, triple chocolate fudge cake, and another of the aftermath, Ziva hurling a chunk of cake at him, effectively starting an all-out food fight. _

_The picture he'd taken of Ziva a mere ten minutes away from here almost seven years ago (very French new wave). His favourite picture of their Paris vacation, the only one he'd taken with another person in it. _

_Them celebrating another closed case at their local bar _–_him, Ziva, McGee, and Abby all squashed together along one side the of booth, arms around each other as they raised their glasses to the camera. He hadn't noticed it at the time but Ziva's body was canted towards his, her eyes (bright, warm, and full of life) were locked on him, and the smile on her face was brighter than a camera flash. (__**Let friends get closer**__, his bucket list had said, he thinks it's one of the few things he's managed to tick off.) _

_A picture of her trying on the horribly kitsch bridesmaid's dress she never got to wear to Jimmy's wedding. As far as he's aware, she never found out he was in possession of this particularly incriminating photo; he'd turned on the charm as he asked Breena, Jimmy's remarkably down-to-earth and shockingly normal then-fianc_é_e, to send one him and she'd surprised him by following through (who would've thought the autopsy gremlin could land a woman like that?). (He was pretty sure she'd been under the impression that he and Ziva were as together as she and Jimmy were and for some reason, he hadn't bothered to correct her.) _

_The old boarding school picture of him looking like a bible salesman that had spent the better part of a year cello-taped to Ziva's computer monitor. _

He finds the picture he'd been looking for down near the bottom of the box.

_Ziva proudly wearing a fake baby bump and a bright yellow shirt that read Bun in the Oven. _

Did she smile like that when she found out? Did she find out what she was having beforehand, or did she wait to be surprised? _(Ziva doesn't like surprises so he thinks it was probably the latter.)_ Did she _ever_ think about calling him? (_Oh, he knows what Orli told them, that Ziva apparently went all __**I am an independent woman and I don't need no man**__ and decided to go it alone but he's still not sure he buys it.)_

It's the sort of picture that has him imagining how things could've gone.

He imagines Ziva with just a hint of a bump, firmly claiming that _I can still do my job, Tony, stop fussing. _He imagines the morning sickness and the terror and the _oh god, I'm so not ready for this_. He imagines Ziva waking him up at three in the morning because she was craving something completely bizarre, some middle-eastern staple that was common enough to her but seemed so utterly foreign to him. He imagines himself trying and failing to assemble a crib, cursing the poor Swedish to English translation of the instructions and insisting that _no don't call Gibbs, I swear I can manage, seriously, Ziva, stop laughing_.

He imagines him cradling their newborn daughter, Ziva near sleep but still making sure to remind him to _support her head, Tony_ because this isn't the doll he's been practising with for the last three months, this is their daughter, a living, breathing human being that they created together.

He imagines Ziva whispering to their daughter in melodic Hebrew _(she would want to be able to talk to their child without him understanding because she's wonderfully evil like that)_. He imagines Ziva frantically calling Gibbs because he's like a father to both of them and _how do you make this thing stop crying? Don't they ever get tired? _He imagines himself teaching a slightly older Tali how to play baseball _(it's every kid's dream, even McGee) _and Ziva teaching her English idioms incorrectly as her revenge because no matter how hard he tries she still doesn't get how quintessentially American baseball is.

He runs his thumb over the picture, it's slightly faded now due to years of poor treatment but the smile on her face is still as bright as it was the day it was taken. He should hate it, it's a blatant taunt, it's everything he could've had; not to mention that, every time he sees it, he can't help but remember the calm before the storm – the few days of relative peace before things turned to shit.

_"__You looked good in that."_

_"__Still would."_

And:

_"__What is it with you and old photos lately?"_

_"__Windows into our past."_

_"__They were fitting me for the prosthetic, Tony. There's nothing embarrassing about it."_

_"__Oh, not embarrassing; telling. You're smiling."_

But most of all, it reminds him of _what about my father? _and _aba! (it'd killed him to hear Ziva make a noise like that and holy shit, he hopes to God that he never, __**ever **__has to hear Tali scream like that), _and _who did this? _

He can't help but love it anyway. It's a snapshot from the good old days _(he never thought he'd come to think of agent afloat and secret war games and dead sisters and Ducky possibly being a war criminal and Michael Fucking Rivkin as the good old days but hey, c'est la vie (see, he's embracing his new life in sweet Par-ee)) _and lately he's found himself missing _the good old days _more and more. He's getting nostalgic in his middle age, it seems _(he'd take bursts of nostalgia over full-on midlife crisis any day)_. It's probably what makes him decide to stick the photograph onto the fridge, right next to Tali's family portrait because she may not be here but hopefully one day she will be and he's not going to let Tali forget who her mom is.

_Happy birthday, Ziva. _

He flips off the light.

_Make a wish… _


	4. Chapter 4

**So… it's been a while. Real life + video games = one great excuse for procrastination. Anyway, here's chapter four, I've got at least three more planned after this one and I _will_ get them done eventually. Most of this was written at some point last year, the rest of it was written at 1am in a caffeine fuelled haze, so if it feels a bit disjointed that's probably why.**

**Please let me know what you think, even just a few words really mean a lot. **

**Hope you enjoy. **

**4\. Ninja**

At first the perpetual sneakiness bothers him.

Kate didn't sneak. She wasn't a sneaky person, she was as up front about everything as it was possible to get. With her, Tony never had to look constantly over his shoulder when he was typing at his computer or playing a quick game of bing ball on his phone or even standing at the urinal _(Kate had been raised as a reasonably normal, fully functioning member of society, she either knew that the men's room was sacred, or, more likely, she simply never had any desire to interrupt __–__ read: terrify __–__ him, and anyone else who might be in there, with her sudden, unexpected presence when he was at his most vulnerable)_. He's sure she would've been great at scaring the living daylights out of him by appearing ominously behind him like some sort of demonic spectre of impending doom, but she was more than content to knock him on his ass with words _(or with fists down at the gym)_. She was former Secret Service, they didn't really make them subtle over there - tough, sure _(say what you want about the Secret Service, and he frequently does, but it's a point of fact even he can't deny) - _but not subtle.

McGee doesn't sneak either. In his case though, Tony suspects it's because he's physically incapable of it. He's all long, awkward limbs and loud, clumsy footsteps _(complete with squeaky boots you could hear from a mile off and the innate ability to crash into things at entirely the wrong moment)_, like a blind three legged deer on ice. Don't get him wrong, the kid's deceptively good with a gun and he's someone who has the potential to be one of the world's most dangerous hackers should he ever put his mind to it; but in the real world, not controlling a character made up of pixels, he's pretty much the opposite of stealthy.

And Abby possesses the ability _(even with her clunky platform boots that could crush all the bones in someone's foot, and clanking jewellery and chains that would make Jacob Marley jealous) _but, thankfully for Tony's heart and mental health, she seems to choose not to use it_ (most of the time)_.

Still, he's long since gotten used to Gibbs suddenly materialising out of nowhere in a puff of coffee fumes and barked orders _(like the world's gruffest and grumpiest fairy godmother)_, so he guesses it's not so much the sneakiness itself that gets to him as it is the person _doing_ the sneaking that does. Because Gibbs, though his apparating act may be outright terrifying sometimes, doesn't enjoy getting up close and personal, doesn't enjoy making him squirm with the blatant suggestiveness of his comments _(the thought alone makes Tony feel vaguely sick to his stomach)_. But Ziva… one minute she'll be sitting at her desk and the next, she'll be leaning over his shoulder, pretending to be interested in whatever's on his computer screen, pressing her chest into his back and whispering into his ear in a way that he's sure goes against _all_ the workplace guidelines _(the next sexual harassment seminar's gonna be real interesting, isn't it?)_.

_Observing him, _that's what she calls it.

_I'm observing you, Tony, _she says in that husky, _I know exactly what I'm doing _voice and he really isn't sure what to make of that. _Observing you… _when said with those hungry, feral, dark eyes and mysterious, curved smirk, he isn't sure if he should be fearing for his life or booking them a room at the Adams House Hotel _(or both)_.

It's easy to see why he was the one selected as the target of her _observations_ – McGee's far too timid/terrified of her to provide a halfway decent challenge, Gibbs is… Gibbs, Abby can't stand her _(though a man can dream…)_, and Ducky's about three times her age _(he's not sure if he finds the thought funny or nightmare inducing; it'd probably end with Ziva giving the poor old man a heart attack)_.

That leaves him.

Back before they'd even met, she'd compiled dossiers on all of them, she knew his track record _(his very poor, very telling track record)_ – always moving, never staying in the same job for more than a few years, almost never in any sort of genuinely committed relationship. He gives as good as he gets, and she knows it. _(Except she somehow manages to leave him a gaping, stuttering mess every time which he can't help but find **really** unfair.)_

"It takes a little more than an exotic accent and some stealth ninja moves to emasculate me," he claims on one occasion, hoping that he sounds authoritative _(he's senior field agent, she came in out of nowhere and into a position that was created specifically for her by a new director who couldn't wait to make them into her own personal puppets; as far as Tony's concerned, he's higher up the food chain than she is, despite what the still fragile team dynamic might suggest)_.

She doesn't even blink, just pats his cheek and pouts. "Only a little more? How disappointing."

It's either the beginning of a beautiful friendship or it's the beginning of the end for Tony DiNozzo.

_Either way, he's in for one hell of a ride._

:&:

It doesn't take long for him to realise that having Ziva David as an ally is preferable to having her as an enemy _(the fact that he almost feels sorry for the guys she routinely takes down __–__ from the petty criminals to the actual murders __–__ speaks volumes)_. Tony's not exactly a slouch in the ass-kicking department _(you don't go through life as a cop on three different forces without having the ability to defend yourself)_ but this chick? She makes him look like Willie Scott _(undoubtedly the worst thing about any of the Indy movies, or almost any movie ever made, come to think of it) _or that annoying little kid from the first Jurassic Park _(what is it with Spielberg films and really irritating side characters?)_. Not to mention the _(numerous)_ occasions where he looks up and catches her methodically and robotically cleaning her gun or sharpening one of the knives that could fillet him like a fish with nothing more than a practiced slash of her wrist, all with the same detached coldness as the freakin' Terminator. Even her _arm-wrestling _borders on deadly as Tony discovers one slow afternoon, almost at the cost of his shooting arm. Gibbs barely glances up from his report at his unexpected howl of pain as his arm gets very violently jerked first in one direction and then slammed down in the other, all his very supportive boss offers is a dry, "Yep, saw that one coming," and an even drier smirk, which somehow doesn't feel very helpful.

It takes him a _lot_ longer to start seeing her as an actual person.

For months she's just the ninja who throws a knife into a woman's chest with the sort of accuracy and force and sheer nonchalance that would make The Great Throwdini jealous. _(Tony may or may not have been the one responsible for spreading that story around the navy yard, resulting in every probie, most senior agents, and a very freaked out Jimmy Palmer giving their newest recruit a very wide berth for a few weeks afterwards.)_

She's the ninja who picks the lock on the handcuffs wrapped around their wrists before hurling herself at the poor, hapless, McGee-lite security guard after they trip the silent alarm on a house _that definitely didn't have a sign, I swear_. _(Some people knit, some people do crosswords, Ziva… she picks locks.)_

She's the ninja who gets herself banned from interrogation barely a week after her arrival due to the very understandable concern that she might just decide to start snapping bones to get information. Considering she's someone who, Tony's certain, has some sort of as-yet-undiagnosed issue regarding her anger levels, it's a movement he's fully on board with _(even when she looks at him as if expecting him to back her up, instead he offers a sympathetic shrug and exits the vicinity before she can start throwing things)_.

_(Months later, she interrogates a man at gunpoint and he'd be lying if he said he knew it wasn't loaded. He'd be lying if he said he even remotely disapproved. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't slightly disappointed that all that happened when she pulled the trigger was an empty **click** and a relieved sob bursting from her would-be victim. He isn't Gibbs, and for the first time he thinks that might be a good thing.)_

But there are moments, rare and fleeting though they may be, when the human side temporarily overrides her otherwise ironclad Mossad programming and she seems less _knife throwing, lock picking, bone snapping, gun wielding, Tony observing ninja _and more _normal twenty-three-year-old who has feelings too (even if those feelings are related to things no normal twenty-three-year-old has ever had feelings about)_.

The first isn't much more than a ripple, a pebble in the ocean, a comment that could almost be considered a throw-away due to the level of off-handedness.

"Trust me, it's far worse when you know the person." Not a particularly earth-shattering statement in of itself but when the topic of conversation is a decapitated head in a cooler, found in the back of a stolen car in the middle of a chop-shop, well, it says a lot. Mainly, _holy hell her life is dark _and _yeah, that explains a lot_.

"You knew someone who was beheaded?" Because of course she did, it stands to reason that if she's done horrible things to horrible people _(and her **talking** a terrified woman into spilling her deepest, darkest secrets within fifteen minutes seemed to indicate she was pretty much an expert at it) _then horrible people have also tried to do horrible things to her.

"A friend. He infiltrated a Hamas cell in Ramallah. Ah… they sent his head overnight express."

Kate getting shot right in front of him had been bad, getting her head FedExed to him would've been a whole lot worse. Sure, he spent weeks afterwards swearing he could feel blood splattering across his face and trying to get the image of a bloody, brain speckled, grapefruit sized hole in Kate's skull out of his mind, but he's sure the sight of her bodiless head and dead, glassy eyes staring up at him would _never_ have stopped haunting him. As he told McGee, a little bit of putty and, from the front, at least, it looked like she was just sleeping _(albeit very stiffly and in a position that would be in no way comfortable)_; with a head and no body there would've been no pretending _(he loves Se7en, could basically quote it to you line for line, doesn't mean he wants a starring role in the real-life version)_.

"I'm sorry. I didn't…"

"That's when I decided that I'd… I'd never be captured alive," she says decisively, the look on her face just _daring_ him to challenge her.

For once he can't even bring himself to try.

You know the sound a fork makes when it's jammed into a garbage disposal? Yeah, that's pretty much the noise that screeches through Tony's brain at her words, loud and piercing, and all he can do is watch her stride away, open-mouthed and feeling inexplicably light-headed.

He makes the mistake of glancing down at the severed head, and for a spilt second Ziva's blank brown eyes stare back at him and he's convinced he's cracking up. The next second Gibbs is calling for him and everything's back to normal.

The second bullet point on his _Ziva might actually be a human after all_ list comes off the back of a possible suicide bomber that turned out to be not quite as suicidal as first appearances suggested.

She'd told him about her younger sister the day they met, sheltered from the rain, eating burning hot pizza and drinking lukewarm coffee.

'_I lost my little sister, Tali, in a Hamas suicide bombing. She was sixteen and the best of us.' _

_(What exactly Ziva's definition of 'the best of us' was, he didn't know, and he hadn't dared to ask, but it was clear she got along with her own sibling far better than his cousins got on with each other __–__ the shouting and the screaming and the hair-pulling was pretty much a Thanksgiving staple out at his Aunt Gina__'__s place __–__ and Lord knows his dad and his aunt have never seen eye to eye in their lives as far as Tony can tell (he's fairly sure at one point his aunt wrote his dad out of her will just to be petty); he supposes he assumed that was just what all siblings were like.) _

Figures a case about a high school kid with a bomb strapped to his chest would get under her skin a bit.

Mind you, it hadn't exactly been fun and games for him either – he'd been the one in charge of deciding whether to give the order to shoot a fifteen-year-old kid in the head or running the risk of said fifteen-year-old blowing up not only himself but also the class of terrified teenage hostages _(and the not so terrified Gibbs, who had done the typical Gibbs thing of putting himself directly in harm's way)_. It'd been one of those days for everyone involved, really. One of the days where no matter what you decided to do, it was always going to be the wrong thing _(except they'd somehow gotten out of it completely unscathed thanks to some quick thinking and Tony's extensive movie knowledge)_.

They'd gotten lucky. So unbelievably lucky. Because nine times out of ten, a situation like this would end with at least one person dead and they all knew it. He'd like to say he'd known how it would play out, that his order to hold off on taking the shot was down to some psychic inkling, but the truth of the matter was that he simply did not want to be the one to be responsible for the kid's death _(no matter how homicidal, suicidal, or genocidal that kid may have turned out to be)_. The fact that Kody was just as traumatised as the kids he'd been forced into holding hostage was nothing but a massive lightning bolt of pure luck.

He'd always been good at poker, always been the master of the bluff _(his natural ability for deflecting and doubling down and sticking to his story no matter how unbelievable and no matter what the truth actually is, just happens to be one of the few things he's glad he inherited from his silver-tongued devil of an old man)_. It was a skill that'd helped him out of more than a few sticky situations from the mundane talking himself out of getting a ticket, to the less mundane managing to commandeer _(steal) _Air Force _Freakin'_ One.

"Why so purple?" Ziva's voice cuts through the blur of alcohol and melancholy.

He snorts into his empty glass as he lifts his head to look at his drinking partner, a rush of affection flooding him at the mutilated expression. **_Why so purple?_**_ Oh, Ziva, **please**, never change._ "Okay, either you've had too much to drink or you're not even trying anymore."

She smiles unashamedly and Tony isn't sure if it's the beer, the warm haziness of the bar, or the events of the past twenty-four hours, but he realises he's never noticed before exactly how breath-taking that smile is. "I figured it would get your attention."

"You've always got my attention," he says, with a smile that doesn't come easy even with close to four pints settling in his empty stomach.

She rolls her eyes and signals to the bartender for two more of the same. It's a slow night _(not really a lotta people looking to get wasted on a Tuesday night) _and she's a hot woman _(who, for some reason's choosing to sit with him while he throws himself a pointless pity party instead of trying to get herself some action like most early-20-somethings would do on a night out) _so they get served quickly; the bartender placing two pints of imported beer down in front of them and smiling appreciatively as Ziva slides him a generous tip along with a sultry wink. It's their third order in the last hour, the guy must know where he's going to be making the bulk of his money tonight. Abby had bailed after a single round, claiming she had to be clear headed for bowling practice _(since when did Abby bowl?) _and McOneAndDone had trailed after her like a lost little puppy _(supposedly he was her ride but Tony didn't buy it, personally he thought it was more likely that the whole 'on-off-sometimes friends with benefits' thing between them was still going strong long after it seemed to have fizzled out)_, leaving just him and Ziva sitting at the bar in a mostly companionable silence.

In the background Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark turns to Tom Petty's Free Fallin' and for the first time in his life he feels _old_. This came out in what? 88? 89? He'd have been in college. Oh man, college. Those were the _days_. Young, carefree, and still trying to figure out who he was, he'd thrived in that environment. Sure, his already unrealistic dream of making it in the NBA was over _(probably for the best, to be honest, if he'd had access to basketball player wages, he'd most likely have ended up… well, exactly where you'd expect __–__ prison, rehab, the gutter, or dead)_, but he quickly found that the college lifestyle suited him _(even if it didn't suit his liver)_.

He'd spent that Fourth of July camping with a few of his friends. He'd never been one for roughing it, he cared about his life of meagre luxuries too much for that, but after some deliberation he'd given in _(when it came down to it, it hadn't taken much; just the thought that the alternative was spending his Fourth of July alone, or worse, with his father had been enough to get him to go along with it - if he was signing up for two days of hell, at least he'd be there with people he could call his friends)_. They'd loaded up his buddy's old Caddy with illegally procured fireworks, as much booze as they could carry, and a few ancient sleeping bags found in someone's dad's shed and hit the open road, the top down and the radio blaring. It wasn't glamorous and they probably thought they looked a lot cooler than they really did, but Tony was having too good a time to care.

It was only after they'd arrived at their planned campsite _(they may or may not have had an actual permit) _that they realised they'd forgotten to pack tents so '_camping_' really equated to lounging on some rolled out sleeping bags _(that smelled of damp and mothballs and stale cigarette smoke, and one of which had a very suspicious stain covering the back)_ in an empty field somewhere. In the end, it hadn't mattered too much; drunk on the sweet, warm summer air and equally warm beer, Tony had been far too buzzed to care about sleeping that night. He remembers sitting around an ill-advised campfire _(drunk college kids, spirits, an almost endless supply of flammable items, and crackling flames were usually a very poor combination)_, stuffing himself with sickly, half-roasted, anaemic-looking marshmallows, occasionally puffing on a dubiously-rolled joint they passed around between them. Somewhere underneath the crackling of flames and raucous laughter, music was playing on a battered old boombox – he remembers the loud chorus of off-tune singing that accompanied the overplayed strains of Sweet Home Alabama, the almost sloppily sentimental rendition of Piano Man, the stoned sing along to Three Little Birds.

The whole thing had felt a bit surreal, almost like an out-of-body experience, like he was floating above himself. If asked now, he'd probably say that was one of the best nights of his life _(even if he doesn't remember anything past 3am or so)_. It wasn't overly wild and the night didn't end with a drunken hookup _(there wasn't enough alcohol in the world)_, but if he's totally honest with himself, it was probably the last time he can remember where he felt truly _free_.

He had his whole life ahead of him, with no idea of what was coming down the line.

It feels like another lifetime.

"You did well today," he vaguely hears Ziva say and he gets the impression that it's not the first thing she's said since he zoned out _(and the fact that Meatloaf's now wailing perishingly over the speakers about what he would and wouldn't do for love tells Tony it's been a good few minutes)_. "Even if you did get all your ideas from a movie."

_Not all of them_, he wants to defend, but for once he doesn't have the energy to argue with her, no matter how playfully.

"And you say movies are unrealistic," he says instead, realising she's staring at him as if expecting a witty retort.

She shrugs. "I suppose sometimes, reality can be unrealistic too."

_Sometimes? Try most of the time._

"Mmm, like the fact that, apparently, you've seen Speed. I gotta say, I really didn't see that one coming."

"We do have movie theatres in Israel, you know."

"Yeah, but you would've been, like, 11 when it came out, pretty sure it was rated R."

She shakes her head as if he's being particularly stupid on purpose _(it's a look she only ever seems to use in connection to him __–__ he isn__'__t sure whether to be offended or flattered or, just because it__'__s Ziva and her grasp on human emotion is more than a little messed up, both at the time)_. "Please," she scoffs derisively with the over-confidence and slurred enunciation of someone well on their way to drunkenness, "slipping by cinema security is child's play. They don't even have guns, how am I supposed to find them in any way threatening?" She pauses thoughtfully, tapping her chin with her index finger, "I don't think I ever paid for a ticket."

"So, you were a ninja even back then, huh?"

"I suppose it is genetic," she says with a small smile.

_(Roughly a decade later, he learns first hand just how genetic the ninja gene must be when a certain two year old someone comes into his life and he swaps hanging out in smoky bars and trying to talk some leggy blonde into sharing a taxi, for spending most of his time trying to locate his daughter during games of hide and seek that could last hours at a time; even though there's only so many hiding spots in their place she somehow manages to not be in **any **of them, **where the hell could she be this time?**)_

"Anyway, stop trying to change the subject."

"What subject?"

"I asked you why you were feeling so down."

_Trust Ziva to not let anything go._

He lets out a half-laugh that lets him know that he's reached _That Point_, the point where the booze starts to control his speech a little more than he would otherwise like. "I realised that I actually felt a little jealous of that kid."

"I think most people like to imagine the people they love coming back from the dead, Kody is one of the lucky few who got to experience that."

_(Years later and a continent away, he sees her sitting on a cheaply built wooden chair across from him, expression vacant, face bruised, and her words play back through his mind. He knows he's just become part of a very exclusive club.) _

"So, you're a member too, huh? Of the dead moms club?"

"Yes, but I was actually talking about Tali."

"Your sister."

She nods once and the smile on her face is so soft, so sad _(he realises it's the first smile of hers that he actively doesn't like)_. "My best friend."

And that's all that's said on the matter. She didn't say much but then, she didn't need to. All he needed tonight was some company, some company who knew how he was feeling. Gibbs would be too Gibbs – stoic, glaring, closed-off to any attempts at casual conversation, far too intuitive, and _way _too good at getting him to spill his secrets; Abby would be too Abby – unwilling to let him go, too chatty, too eager to try and get him to talk about what was on his mind, speaking at a pitch which would only hurt his head; and McGee… no, just no.

Later, she kicks his ass at darts _(no shock there, if it's a game that involves throwing a projectile at a small target, chances are Ziva would win nine times out of ten)_ and he, surprisingly, returns the favour with a game of pool _(he's about 99% sure she let him win, he can't bring himself to feel at all emasculated by it)_.

Afterwards she buys them both a round of beer, chicken wings, and nachos, and for a minute or two, it's almost like he's hanging out with one of his college buddies _(though she's more attractive and far more lethal than anyone he hung around with at college)_. She asks him a question about the basketball game playing on the TV screen behind the bar, and he's all too happy to answer. He knows she probably doesn't care, the only sport he's ever really heard her talk about is soccer _('for the last time, Tony, it's called football')_ and he knows she outright hates football _(American football, proper football… even if they don't always use their feet)_. But she nods along anyway and he can tell she's actually listening to him when she gestures at the screen, exclaiming that the referee's an idiot and _that wasn't a foul, is he blind?_

Tony smiles wider than he has all night as he nudges her with his elbow, a little too hard judging by the way she has to steady her glass to stop it toppling over, and comments that_ we'll make a proper American out of you yet _even though she appears to cheering for entirely the wrong team.

_(Later, he points out her grievous mistake as gently as he can. _

"_They are wearing green. I like green," she says as if it's a valid justification. He rolls his eyes because **you really don't understand how sacred basketball is, do you?** and pelts her with a handful of bar peanuts. She steals his last remaining chicken wing in response, ignoring his loud whine of protest.)_

That night, when he finally collapses into bed _(far, far later than intended, he's got work again in about four hours for God's sake, what was he thinking? He's not twenty anymore and it's becoming more and more obvious; he's reached the age where hangovers last for two days and sleeping in a slightly awkward position means he can't move his neck properly for a week)_ he's surprised to find that the images playing in his head as he drifts off to sleep aren't of exploding bombs and dead teenagers, but of the smile on Ziva's face as he sunk the 8-ball into the far left pocket and her awful attempt at covering it up.

The third presents itself as nervous anger, after a loud mouthed, jumped up little _bastard_ of a drug dealer dies in her custody and she's temporarily benched. _(He's not sure what bothers her more __–__ the dead body lying in the NCIS elevator, or the benching.)_

It isn't normal Ziva anger, that's probably the first red flag.

Normal Ziva anger isn't, as you would probably expect, an increase in yelling or shouting or cursing or punching things _(oh, don't get him wrong, he should watch out for that too, but it's not an indication that the first person to speak gets their throat sliced like a bagel)_. Nope, normal Ziva anger leads to her going all quiet and rigid and steely-eyed _(which is really freakin' annoying because really, it's not too much different from her normal, **everything is fine** behaviour) _because a silent assassin is a plotting assassin and a plotting assassin is a dangerous assassin _(**any** assassin is a dangerous assassin, but it's the plotting ones you really gotta watch out for)_.

This isn't like that.

This is the opposite.

He never thought he'd be able to describe Ziva as _talkative _but as he watches her pace around behind her desk like a caged puma, carrying on a hypothetical conversation between Gibbs and Ducky _(complete with an absolutely adorable attempt at Ducky's accent and a slight tinge of hysteria)_, that's the only word he really _can _use. He exchanges a slightly-concerned, slightly-amused look with McGee as Gibbs rounds the corner midway through her very impressive performance. _(The slightly-concerned, slightly-amused look becomes all concern a minute later when Gibbs strides off leaving the very cryptic and not entirely hopeful statement of, 'now I have to go and talk to the director,' hanging in the air, at which point Ziva looks uncharacteristically agitated and a heavy weight settles in the pit of Tony's stomach.)_

The day ends with Tony's head in a dead guy's lap as he tries to steer based on Ziva's incredibly unhelpful directions _(turns out she's just as awful a navigator as she is a driver) _so they can make it look like the guy Ziva maybe accidentally, maybe purposely killed, is alive enough to drive the car under his own power, all so they can get the director away from the drug dealers who were insane/desperate enough to think that abducting the head of a federal agency was a foolproof way to get their comrade back.

So, all's well that ends well, right?

:&:

He starts dating Jeanne and though it really screws up their rhythm for a while, makes it hard for him to talk to her without feeling squirming discomfort and repressed guilt, she's still the person he wants watching his back more than anyone else _(not that he'd ever tell her that, the smugness would be **unbearable**)_.

She gets herself framed for murder _(well to be fair she **was** due a turn) _and Ziva, being Ziva, meant there was absolutely _no_ doing it halfway, resulting in a manhunt by at least three different agencies, a hint of international espionage, and a very unwanted reunion with FBI Agent Sacks_._ When he finds her standing in Gibbs's basement, weapon already aimed in his direction, he isn't sure whether to yell or hug her; the end result ends up being something along the lines of _unofficial staring contest with comments they almost certainly don't mean, coupled with a familiar modicum of sexual tension. _

_('I don't remember asking your opinion, Officer David,' he bursts out, a combination of anger, worry, authority, and something he can't quite put his finger on. _

'_You see? He's been completely insufferable since you left,' she says with an expression that tells him that she actually hadn't found it all that bad.)_

She disarms bombs as he openly stares down the front of her top, until she notices and he says completely the wrong thing. In his defence, how was he supposed to know that saying that the sight of her cleavage possibly wasn't worth dying over would lead to her zipping up her top _(it was one hell of a view while it lasted)_.

She tries to teach them the art of knife throwing _(he's not bad, McGee's terrible, and Lee almost kills Gibbs, so overall he'd say it went entirely as expected)_.

She drives too fast and takes corners on two wheels all to the soundtrack of McGee loudly dry heaving in the back of the truck while Tony chokes out a laugh and tries not to notice how fast the scenery whizzes by out the window. _(Next time McAuthor decides to release a thinly-veiled story of their lives, Tony'll try to ride with Gibbs to the scene instead because as amusing as it is listening to the probie sob out broken apologies, he's sorta fearing for his life too.)_

Then she just _has_ to go and develop feelings for a man dying of radiation poisoning and he's reminded of how much things have really changed. Not just with her, with him too, because instead of making fun of her, or pointing out that _you know this a terrible idea, right?, _he has to go and _help her (because if this whole thing's taught him **anything **it's that you really, **really** can't choose who you fall for - life would be so much simpler if you could)_.

Despite dating a doctor, Tony categorically does _not_ like hospitals.

Sure, a hospital is where he went when he broke his arm trying to perfect the ultimate bike trick when he was a kid, and the nurses there fed him jello and told him how brave he was being _(come to think of it, that might've been where his… fondness… for medical professionals started)_. It's where he spent time after his favourite little cousin was born, and for the first, and possibly only time in his life that he can remember, every single member of his dad's side of the family _(and in true Italian-American fashion, it was a massive, massive family; seven year old Tony had quickly lost count of the number of cousins and aunts and uncles and people whose relation to him remained a mystery crammed together in the small hospital room)_ were in the same place at the same time on good terms. And, how could he forget, it's where he woke up with a stitched-up forehead and a leg cast after he did a head dive down the stairs at his first real house party when he was fifteen. The doctors had obviously taken one look at him and decided to take pity because rather than calling his dad or the cops _(he isn't sure which one would be worse) _they called his elderly grandmother _(God rest her soul) _instead. If he hadn't been hungover, doped up, and beyond tired, the sight of an eighty year old, five foot nothing Italian woman wearing a nightgown and slippers shuffling through the hospital corridors to collect him would've been pretty funny.

But it's also where he spent a lot of time when his mom was dying. And of course no one had done the hard but decent thing of giving it to him straight; no one explicitly came out and told him _why_ he was spending his weekends sitting silently on a hard plastic chair in a sterile antiseptic prison, watching movies on the crummy black and white TV in the corner of the room with the sound turned all the way down because every little thing, even the sound of his voice, hurt his mom's head. No one told him to appreciate the time he had left with her… so, of course, he didn't _(he hasn't stopped regretting it since)_.

It's where he found himself after opening an envelope sealed with a kiss that could only have been for him and instead of the love letter he'd been expecting, he received a faceful of white powder _(sadly not the good kind of white powder either, nope, just his luck it had to be an envelope full of genetically altered pneumonic plague)_. All the odds suggested he shouldn't have walked out again.

It's where he forced himself to sit when his boss was knocked into a coma by an explosion he _should've seen coming_, while simultaneously having to deal with the stress of not only having to run the MCRT team_ (the MCRT team that felt on the verge of fracturing) _but also trying to find a terrorist before more people ended up like Gibbs _(he failed and honestly, he feels like he still hasn't made up for it)_.

Yet he puts up with it.

He puts up with the doctor poking at him with needles and shining blinding lights into his eyes and constantly checking his blood pressure. He puts up with the questions and the total invasion of privacy despite the fact that he's in more or less perfect health _(he's well aware his diet could do with a few less burgers, and pizzas, and units of alcohol per week)_. He puts up with various things being stuck in various places where things should _not_ be stuck _(he'll make sure no one ever, **ever** finds out about that part)_.

And he does it all for one reason and one reason only. He does it so that Ziva can have a few minutes in private with a man who'll be dead in a matter of days.

_Dammit, he's really goin' soft._

_(But then again… it seems like she is too and he's not sure either of them are completely comfortable with it.)_

He's released from the doctor's custody an excruciating half hour later with the expected all clear _('must've just been imagining things, y'know, paranoia, hypochondria, and all that, sorry for wastin' your time, doc,' he'd claimed upon noticing the doctor's narrowed eyes and questioning expression, already inching towards the door)_ by which time he's received a text from McGee letting him know that they had taken the travel coordinator into custody. Apparently she hadn't been trying to kill the guy after all, just trying to stop him from leaving the country_ (he doesn't even have the energy to feel anger at the woman's downright stupidity - though seriously, what did she thinking slipping thallium into someone's system would do?)_. At first he contemplates looking around for Ziva, maybe asking her if she wants a ride back to the Navy Yard now that the case is done and dusted, until he realises that his presence likely wouldn't be welcomed at the moment. Instead he sighs, shrugs on his jacket and heads for his car alone.

That night he meets with Jeanne at a small restaurant around the corner from her apartment and it takes all the energy he has left to act like he's having a good time. Each time it gets harder and harder to look her in the eye and claim that _work was really difficult today, that's all_ because _she doesn't know the half of it_. He ends up leaving with a doggy bag full of Chinese food and an uneasy feeling in his stomach that for once has nothing to do with overeating or badly cooked kung pao chicken. He kisses Jeanne on the cheek in the street outside her apartment and hails a taxi all in the same motion, he rushes out an excuse about _early morning tomorrow_ and _think that food wasn't right_, leaping into the cab before he's even finished speaking.

He doesn't sleep at all that night.

_(The next day, he pretends not to notice Ziva's conspicuous absence. To distract himself he chews almost rabidly on the end of his pen until it bursts in a sea of black ink and chipped plastic and listens to McGee mourning the loss of his expensive Armani jacket as if **that** was the take-away from the last few days. _

_The day after that she's back, sporting bloodshot eyes, no makeup, and a neon orange running cap that he knows wasn't originally hers. _

_He pretends not to notice that too. _

_She seems all too happy to let him.)_

:&:

By the time she returns from Israel with a newly topped up tan, a boyfriend, a fresh scar at her hairline, and a slightly different outlook on life, _(none of which he can bring himself to ask about, chances are he wouldn't like the answers he received)_ he's tired of pretending and for the briefest of moments, he could swear she is too.

Stuck together in a storeroom, chest to chest and with barely enough room to draw breath as alarms blare all around them and footsteps thunder down the corridor inches away from their hiding spot, time slows down to a standstill. It's hardly the time or the place _(pretty much the opposite actually, trapped in the middle of a war game he would later find out they were destined to lose from the get go, it absolutely isn't the ideal time to be thinking about his love life (or lack thereof)) _but as he looks down into her eyes _(which he's alarmed to see don't look entirely calm) _he can't help the direction his mind wanders in. It'd be easy, _so_ easy _(except almost nothing about them has **ever **been easy)_.

He swallows audibly as the heat in the tiny room cranks up several hundred degrees _(he's fully convinced that if they don't get out of here soon he's going to spontaneously combust)_. He watches as she does everything she can to avoid meeting his gaze – her eyes flicking first to a spot on the wall behind him, and then landing square in the middle of his chest.

There's a split second where their eyes meet and he could swear that the tension between them is finally going to be resolved, but Ziva, in true Zive style, doesn't appear to be reading from the same script he is.

"Stop breathing," she hisses into the dark. He holds his breath and desperately hopes she can't hear how fast his heart's beating against his ribcage.

And then everything's in fast forward. The mad dash for an exit _any exit dammit_, the sudden realisation of _this really isn't a game, isn't it? _when they get cornered by real soldiers with real guns, and the thought of _this so isn't like the movies, why can't this be like the movies?_ Because instead of him and Ziva doing the whole _back to back badasses_ routine _(like he's pictured more times than he'd care to say)_ what actually happens is he tries to surrender _(because he may be immature and more than a bit crazy but he sure isn't suicidal) _while Ziva… proceeds to try and ninja her way out of there. He earns himself a gun butt to the face and a nice little trip into blissful unconsciousness.

The last thing he sees before the darkness takes over is something that'll surely never leave him for as long as he lives _(which with the way the situation's progressing might not be too much longer)_. Ziva's always had this amazing ability to make kicking ass look no different to dancing, she ducks, and spins, and throws a kick as if it was nothing more than a well rehearsed, well practised routine that she'd performed a million times before. She may be outnumbered and outgunned, but that doesn't seem to factor into her mind at all.

He hears her yell out his name in a tone hovering somewhere between worry and anger _(he really, **really** hopes she's not angry at him, for once he genuinely didn't **do** anything)_ before snapping into what he likes to mentally refer to as Ziva: Warrior Princess mode.

_No power in the 'verse can stop her._

_Also? She can kill you with her brain. _

_That's his ninja... _

When he comes to with a pounding head and wounded pride, he learns that it'd taken four soldiers to finally stop her roaring rampage of revenge, that they'd handcuffed her to a pole just in case she woke up and decided to resume her onslaught. Despite his irritation, at Ziva, at the situation they've found themselves in, at the fact that he'll have to make yet _another _dental appointment, he can't help but feel a twist of satisfaction in his gut as he catches the eye of the soldier who'd knocked him out – the guy's left eye's completely swollen shut and his lip has to be at least twice it's natural size _(he flashes the man a crooked, blood smeared grin as he flips the coin that ensures he'll never have to pay for another drink for as long as he llives; he receives a haughty glare and a rude gesture in return)_ – as he follows a stern looking soldier through the corridors to where they're keeping his partner_ ('for her own safety,' he'd been told)_.

Later, as they ride the elevator _(which seems spacious when compared to the cramped closet)_, he pretends his foul mood is solely down to the politics involved in the situation _(he's so damn tired of pretending)_.

He's not sure if she buys it _(she definitely doesn't)_, but she agrees anyway and if her eyes seem just that little bit more wistful afterwards then he thinks he can put that down to the knock to the head he took.


End file.
